Wednesday July 1st 2009 Hanoi

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Wednesday July 1st 2009 Hanoi

It was around 12 again by the time we got our act together and looked around the internet enough to head out. Our passports were due back so we enquired as to what time in the afternoon they might be ready and amazingly they we there already but very annoyingly they had only given me a single entry which means I will have to get a different one to get back into China from Hong Kong, we had applied and paid for a dual entry and Mary got hers. Very frustrating and the only girl who works there who has a clue wasn’t around. There was probably very little that could be done about it in Hanoi and we really wanted to head away tomorrow so just went and booked our tickets on the bus to China anyhow. We had found the office through information on the internet where to buy the tickets direct for about $14 other than the $26 we were quoted in some travel agents and probably would have been even more in our hotel. Just shows you how much cheaper it is to go direct, and how much commission and rip off they are putting on everything, no wonder they can bargain with you. The woman selling the tickets was the rudest person we have ever met, when you go, I say when you go, I don’t understand, slam a drawer, pound a keyboard. I know we were making her speak English bug honestly bit of customer service. We did manage to get a ticket that will bring us well into China too though so we get to almost where we want to be without another connection in Nanning.

Our moods abated a bit over another lovely roll in No Noodle and we headed out on a bit of a shopping trip for our last day since we added up our finances and we aren’t doing too badly at all really. Couldn’t find too much to buy that we’d be able to carry though so went for the most delicious ice cream in “Fanny’s” instead. We headed home to book our hostel for Guilin in China s thought it might be best not to just show up somewhere we can’t even read at 10pm looking for someplace to stay. We headed back to Avalon then for dinner and had the most amazing meal of Lamb chops and beautiful mashed potatoes; Mary had salmon and mash and a few beers and cocktails. A very nice meal to finish off our time in Hanoi and actually in Vietnam and to prepare us for The Peoples Republic of China

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